Regarding your application to extend your stay within UK by changing your Fiancee Visas into Spouse Visas and the subsequent introduction of ID cards and how it applies to you.

The aim of this post is to inform everyone of the changes and new guidelines from the Home Office as at 25th Nov 2008 and how it affects everyone as at todays date 7th May 2009. These things have been discovered by information on Home Office and Filip Embassy websites and from experience etc. Here is a recap on a discussion under a different heading. This was the first posting that started the findings:

My wife a Filipina received a fiancee visa to Britain on Nov27 2008 just 2 days after the changes in UK. We are now married in Britain (a week ago) visa expires 27 May and she is now applying for a 2 year spouse visa. The Home office require her to fill out a FLR (M) form but ask for her title (Miss or Mrs)and her full name as appears in her passport. Her passport is her maiden name, but if she gives this information I think the new ID card will show her maiden name and as a Miss.

The Philippine embassy advise that she get the "amendment" page of her green passport amended to married name but I am unsure whether Home office will notice the amendment as they may not look at the amendments page of passport.


Subsequent Posts from me based on discoveries.

1) For your information, rules changed on Nov 25th 2008. The UK government are stealthily bringing in ID cards for everyone. On Nov 25th they started on those who wanted to extend their fiancee visas into spouse visas.

It seems as well as Passports being stamped with spouse visas they are now issuing ID cards also. The issue for discussion is will ID cards match the visa details and will the visa details match the name on the data page of passport?

My spouse and decided to ask Philippine Embassy to amend the amendment page of her green passport to show her married name

On the FLR(M) form we will put Mrs followed by married name and then write "see amendment page of passport" next to it. We will also write a covering letter explaining it all. We will be visiting Home Office so hopefully the Home Office will let us explain it also. If it is a problem hopefully they will advise us and correct the form themselves if we are wrong.

2) In reply to a question asked by someone I posted : “All depends on how much time you have. If you have say 2 months to spare before visa runs out it would be best to get a completely new passport from Fil Embassy. At present takes 4 to 6 weeks. If you do not have 6 weeks but you still have green passport you can amend passport with fil embassy - takes 2 to 3 working days.

In the meanwhile you can book a date at Home Office. Having a new passport removes all confusion because it has the marital name on the data page whereas amended passport has marital name on amended page which Home Office may not see. However, the Home Office website states to not book with Home Office more than a month in advance of your application because FLR forms tend to change quite regularly. They state that you should not book up appointment more than 30 days in advance of the latest print-out of the form. I have just printed out form “FLR(M) 042009” and this is ok although we are now in 052009“

3) Don’t trust what the recorded messages say. I booked up at Croydon on 15th May, whereas recorded message said no slots available at Croydon in May. When I phoned they said there were many slots still available in May. My experience is that you can only get through to the automated system if you call between 9am to 9.45am and best time I found was about 9.20am. I needed to contact them 3 times and always got through at that time but never succeeded after 10am

4) To update you all on my situation. Although our deadline for visa extension is only 27 May, it is not a problem.

Before I tell you what happened I just want to say that I thoroughly checked out Philippine Embassy website, Home Office Website and phoned both up to get as much info and advice as possible. I found Fil embassy very helpful but Home Office (although they try to be helpful) not helpful because they have to keep to guidelines on what they are allowed to say. Therefore because I cannot find answers to all my questions from those two sources I asked this website for answers based on others who have faced my situation. This website has been very helpful to piece everything together in my mind!. I now know what to do! Back to my story.......

We went to Fil Embassy yesterday to give notification of marriage and passport amendment. They saw us straight away without an appointment. As we had already filled out all our forms and photocopied everything they wanted we were in and out in less than 30 mins (including waiting time). We were told we could collect the amended passport today, but as we are now on honeymoon, will collect next wednesday. We have appointment with Home Office in Croydon 2 days later on friday.

Note that this will be updated as soon as further developments take place.